


More Than an Abandoned Memory

by EmpyrealFantasy



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Awkward Romance, Because Connor POV, Connor Deserves Happiness, Everybody Lives, Explicit Language, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Friendship/Love, Gen, Gift Fic, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, discussions of depression
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-28 19:49:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11424948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmpyrealFantasy/pseuds/EmpyrealFantasy
Summary: Connor Murphy wakes up.Only... he could have sworn he'd been dead, that he'd been watching thatendearingannoying loser Evan Hansen wrap himself up in a perfect friendship the two of them had never had.





	1. The World's Passed You By

**Author's Note:**

  * For [supermassivehomo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/supermassivehomo/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a gift to my (actual, biological) adorable, wonderful geek of a son [supermassivehomo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/supermassivehomo/pseuds/supermassivehomo) who is currently avidly obsessed with Dear Evan Hansen. 
> 
> I love you, sweetheart. Sorry if my characterizations are awkward, since I've never written for this fandom. Mommy tried. (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ
> 
> ♥ Will just be a little, fluffy ~~twoshot~~ threeshot? Err... it won't be long. I hope.

Connor woke up.

Consciousness hit him with the strength of a freight train, eyes flying open and breath stalling in his lungs. He blinked at the familiar, star-splattered ceiling of his bedroom, wide-eyed and stunned. How was he—hadn’t he been—?

He scrambled out of bed and spun around, taking in the familiar bedroom he’d spent so many hours holed away in over the years. His bed, his posters, his dresser. The guitar he’d briefly tried to learn to play before giving up, the black eyeliner and nail polish he’d occasionally taken to wearing laying discarded beside his brush in front of his mirror… the mirror he’d broken in a fit of rage, that he’d used the shards to—

Maybe he was crazy after all. He huffed out a hollow, disbelieving laugh and sunk back to sit on his bed, heart hammering. He must be. Because he could have sworn that he’d been dead just a few moments ago, that he’d been watching that loser Evan Hansen from school bury himself deeper and deeper into lies about some epic friendship he’d supposedly had with Connor himself. That people had actually acted sad that he’d died, that he’d been remembered with something other than fear and hatred, that he’d been remembered at all.

Connor buried his face into his hands and gave another hollow laugh. Right, crazy. What a fucked up dream that had been. What was up with his subconscious? It wasn’t like he was looking for a way to die or anything, not really. He just got so _pissed_ sometimes, and really, who would even notice if he went away?

His subconscious wanted him to believe that people would, apparently. The dream’s meaning had been pretty clear. What a load of optimistic bullshit that was.

“Connor?  Connor! Breakfast is ready – summer’s almost over, you know, you can’t sleep all day anymore!”

He jolted at the sound of his mother’s voice, head whipping to stare at his closed door. A flash of her breaking down, begging for the last memory she had of her son – it was a dream, damnit, it shouldn’t matter – flashed through his mind, making his heart stutter.

“Come on, Connor! I bought syrup that wasn’t gluten-free since you hated the other kind so much!”

He made his way quietly down the stairs, still feeling off-center and befuddled. “It isn’t like he’ll thank you,” said Zoe in a low, sarcastic drawl. “I don’t know why you bother. He’s probably too fucked up to get out of bed.”

“Language, Zoe!”

Connor pushed open the door to the kitchen and eyed the too-familiar scene: his father sat tapping away at his Blackberry, his mother ferrying food from the stove to the table, Zoe picking at her plate with a surly scowl. It was like nothing had happened… because nothing _had_ happened. He’d dreamt up _months_ of events, apparently. How fucked up was that? Did he actually care what these people thought so much that he’d manufactured some crazy world where they’d give a shit if he died? Fuck, he was not only crazy, he was pathetic.

“I’m going out,” he muttered, making a beeline for the door without looking back at them.

“You’re going out? I mean—good! You’re going out!” He could hear the forced way she tried to inject cheer into her voice.

“Probably just needs to meet his dealer,” Zoe said snidely under her breath.

He opened the door without replying or glancing back, shoulders hunched.

“Are you taking your phone with you? Don’t stay out too late; you need to get back on a regular schedule with your senior year starting soon—“

Connor slammed the door behind himself, not pausing as he strode blindly toward the street. He didn’t even know where he was going, only that he needed to get away.

* * *

He stayed out until well past sunset. He’d spent the majority of the day swinging idly back and forth on a swing at the park down the road, scowling at small children that worked up the courage to come near him. He felt no less crazy, but the thick bewilderment that came from waking up after such an intensely _real_ -feeling dream had faded somewhat. He made his way home because he didn’t know what else to do; what else could he do? So he walked the familiar greenbelt path behind the houses on his block, forcing himself to shove the dream from his mind. He wasn’t _suicidal_ , so it wasn’t like it was going to change his mind. He didn’t sit around planning how he was gonna die or anything, he just knew with absolute certainty that no one would miss him if he was gone. And if he sometimes blanked out a bit when he was super pissed, when he was high and so angry he could just scream and kick and—

But he wasn’t some sad little depressed kid, damnit. That trophy went to that loser Hansen who had apparently dreamt up some great, life-changing friendship between them once Connor had been dead. In his dream. Not in reality, in his dream. He shook his head and focused harder on shoving the dream away. He needed to stop thinking about it like it had been real; it was only going to make him fuck something up.

The door opened as he touched the handle, swinging in to frame Zoe in the light that spilt from it. She startled and shrieked, stumbling in surprise to see him standing there. He caught her before she could fall, maneuvering her until she was standing straight. She stared down at his hands on her and he jerked them back like he’d been burned.

“What the hell, Connor?” she said after a long, delayed pause. “Why are you just standing there in the dark?”

“I just walked up,” he huffed, not sure why he was explaining himself. He moved past her but surprised himself when he did it gently, turning to avoid shouldering her as he had never done before.

She, too, seemed shocked, running her eyes up and down him. She opened her mouth to question him but seemed to think better of it, lips snapping shut and her eyes narrowing. “Whatever.” The door was closed between them with a slam, leaving Connor to stare at the door with blank eyes. He recalled the platitudes that the Hansen kid had given her about how much Connor had supposedly loved her, how she’d thawed and gentled from the iceberg she’d been the last few years – unmovable and cold – into the little sister he still remembered playing with as a child. Did the mere idea of Connor actually giving a shit about her mean that much to her?

But no—there he went again, thinking like the dream was real. He swallowed down the strange urge to call her back and made his way up the stairs, ignoring the murmur of his parents’ voices from the living room. He needed to find a way to separate the dream from reality. He needed to somehow disprove it so he’d stop _dwelling_ on the shit that had never happened.

He pulled his laptop from under his bed, picking at some bit of gunk next to the touchpad while it booted up. He didn’t know why his mind had chosen Evan Hansen, of all people, to fixate on. Well, that wasn’t entirely true – they’d had a couple of classes together the year before, and Connor was well aware that he’d spent too much time watching the awkward little loser chew endearingly on his lower lip and fidget around in his seat, stammer over the answer to any question asked of him. But it seemed a bit much to have created so much depth about him: likes, dislikes, friendships, odd habits. He hardly knew Evan beyond thinking he was cute in a nerdy, gawky way.

But this worked to his advantage in one way, at least. Surely he could easily show himself how fake the dream was when he saw that Evan was nothing like he’d dreamed up. He pulled up Twitter first, poking around classmates’ profiles until he found the barely-used, sparse account for @evanhansen. It was… lackluster, to say the least. A few clumsy, badly-worded jokes, a several-tweet reply thread arguing with someone about whether ‘cronch’ was a word. This was such a stupid idea, Connor thought. He scowled and nearly violently tried to close the webpage, but a small link caught his attention in Evan’s profile. Instagram. Connor clicked through and found himself drowning in pictures of trees and plants, several attempts at aesthetically pleasing angled shots of forest paths. So Evan _did_ like trees, huh? He must have heard that at some point and his subconscious remembered it. That didn’t mean anything, obviously.

Several hours later, Connor found a spike of rage fading to see his laptop in pieces on the ground, his mother shouting from downstairs asking if he was all right. He hadn’t learned anything useful, instead had ended up daydreaming about the version of the stupid loser Hansen his mind had created. God, he was so pathetic.

* * *

The next day, he was up with the sun and making his way to the bus station, the directions he’d found to Ellison State Park on his cell phone. He hadn’t managed to sleep at all last night, half afraid he’d dream again and wake up even more confused, half afraid he wouldn’t. Desperation drove him onto the bus, ignoring the startled, wary look a little old lady gave him when he stormed past her to board the bus first. He glared at her and received a cowing scowl in return.

The bus ride seemed to go on forever. Connor opened an app on his phone and began jotting notes down, little things he remembered about the Evan Hansen of his dream that he could pretty easily disprove. His mother’s name, his fear of rabbits and chinchillas, the way he organized his sock drawer. Connor couldn’t guess when he’d heard that Evan would be working as an apprentice park ranger that summer, but he must have heard about it somewhere. How else had be known?

He pasted on a stilted parody of a friendly smile to the first park ranger he came across, claiming to be a visiting friend of Evan’s. That the lie made something in his stomach squeeze and swoop was irrelevant. He was pointed down a lesser-used path to his right, told Evan was to be checking on the health of the trees and wildlife along it that morning. He spat out a ‘thank you’ to the increasingly confused looking man and darted away, feeling like he needed to get to Evan right that minute. It was like ripping off a Band-Aid, right? Prove his stupid dream was fake, that Evan Hansen wasn’t half the clumsily-charming, sweet boy he’d dreamed had so sincerely playacted caring for him, then get on with his life. He couldn’t—he just couldn’t keep _going_ like this, all confused with this sinking, tight pain in his chest. He had always denied being crazy, no matter how many shrinks Cynthia and Larry had tried to force him to see, but every minute since waking up the morning before only made him feel crazier and crazier.

When he rounded a corner and heard a grunt, his eyes swung upwards before he had really registered what he was doing. And there was Evan Hansen, face red and sweat beading across his brow as he heaved himself upward, a terribly serious, hard expression on his face unlike anything Connor had ever seen from him.

God, but the loser was going to think Connor was nuts. Showing up out of nowhere, staring at him helplessly. But images from the dream kept cycling through his mind, the heart-wrenching speech Evan had given to the school, Evan sitting on Connor’s bed and idly stroking his comforter as he talked to Connor like he was there, Evan awkwardly patting Cynthia’s back as she hugged him and sobbed, Evan sitting alone in his room at night tearing at his hair and berating himself for his lies but still wishing that the lies had been the truth. That he’d really been Connor’s friend. That he really had had a friend.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t notice for several seconds that Evan had frozen on a high branch, eyes wide and jaw slack as he stared down at Connor where he stood just off the path. The angle was awkward and Evan was quite a ways up, but Connor swore the boy was muttering ‘no’ over and over again as he stared.

“C-Connor?” Evan gasped out, fingertips skittering over the bark of the tree as his grip tightened. He looked like—like he’d seen a ghost.

And with an echoing _crack_ Evan Hansen was falling.

* * *

 

Connor darted into movement without thinking, a shout leaving his lips. He was too late, though. With a scream, Evan hit the ground, all his weight landing on his arm. On his left arm. Connor felt a chill run down his spine, hairs standing on end. Maybe—had the dream been something of a premonition, then? Or was this just a fucked up coincidence?

But the dream didn’t matter in that moment. Connor hit his knees and reached out, hands awkwardly hovering over Evan. He didn’t know if he should move him or what. “The hell, Evan?” Connor said breathlessly, hands clenching and unclenching uselessly. “What do I do? Should I go get someone?”

Blue eyes – bright blue, summer-sky blue, much more startling than his own vaguely bluish-greyish eyes – stared at him; Evan didn’t even seem to be blinking. His mouth worked soundlessly as he gasped for air, half from pain and half from shock. “C-Connor?”

“Yes, you idiot. Why in the hell wouldn’t you be more careful?” He seethed and took refuge in his irritation, scowling down at the other boy. “Your arm’s totally broken. I should go find a ranger, right?”

“Don’t—don’t go!” Evan gasped out, his right arm reaching out to grab at Connor. He seemed to notice what he’d done moments later, flailing back away and managing to jostle his arm. He winced and hissed between his teeth, tears gathering in his eyes. “Don’t leave me alone, please.” He said it so quietly that, had Connor not been singularly focused on him, he probably wouldn’t have heard. “Ah, I mean, I don’t want to bother you or anything! No big deal! It’s just a scratch—“

“Did you hit your head on the way down? We need to get someone to take you to a hospital.”

“Doesn’t matter, I’ve got to be dreaming—“ Evan said vaguely, still staring with wide blue-blue eyes trained on Connor’s face. “Or maybe I’m dead. Am I dead, Connor?”

Connor froze. “The fuck, man? Why would you say that?”

“Well,” Evan said, flushing now and stammering. “I mean, yeah, that’s dumb! Just, I mean, I know this has to be a dream? Because for one thing it was snowing last night but now it’s over eighty degrees? But also, because you’re dead?” he said it like a question, voice rising into a shrill state as he began talking faster and faster. “Not that I don’t like when I dream about you, but this one seems a little mean? I thought you weren’t supposed to feel pain in dreams, so I guess being dead is possible, but that doesn’t make much sense either?”

The string of panicked questions would normally have given Connor a headache, but instead he found himself frozen, one hand clamped on Evan’s uninjured arm. “What did you say?”

“W-What part? About my dream?”

“About me being _dead_. Why would you say that?”

Evan stared at him in silence for a long moment, lips parted as he flicked his eyes over Connor’s face. “Umm, because you are? Remember? You killed yourself just a few days into the school year.”

This, he thought, was what shock felt like. Suddenly he was lying on the ground beside Evan, peering at the endless sky through the tree’s branches.

It hadn’t been a dream. Somehow, impossibly, he’d _travelled through time_.

The hell was he going to do now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second half of tooth-rotting fluff to come in the next few days, if my wonderful son doesn't kill me for leaving it there. ♥


	2. Tap, Tap, Tapping on the Glass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied. It will be three chapters. :P ~~Or, well, maybe four? Depends on how much Evan/Connor moosh happens and whether I include the foundations of family repair. Uhh. Right. Damnit, feels, stahlp. Maybe a series?~~ Also, this is pretty much heartbreaking angst, but I didn't feel right about skipping over it to get to the soul-smothering beauty of them loving eachother.
> 
> I edited the tags, but warnings on this chapter for referenced drug use and past-tense suicide. Also feelz. Angsty, heartbreaking feelz.
> 
> Next chapter will be the super-tooth-rotting fluff, made all the fluffier for having been born of this. :)

“Umm, Connor? Connor?” Evan wheezed and whined in his throat. “Oh no, I broke him!” Vaguely, as if from far away, Connor could hear Evan’s steadily rising voice as he panicked. “Is this like a horror movie? Did I _kill him_ by reminding him he was dead?” A hand flailed against his chest, fingers pressing just a bit too hard against his neck. “Oh thank God,” Evan said with a loud exhale. “Not dead. Still broken, though; good job, Hansen! Ugh, this is the worst dream ever—“

“Not a dream,” Connor gasped out in return, still staring at the sky through the trees. “I remember, too. But it’s summer before school started again.”

“Very funny, Connor,” Evan said in a squeaking, high-pitched tone. “You know, usually when I dream of you it’s much more cheerful! Can we do one of those dreams, please?”

“Dream of me often?” He’d meant to sound sardonic, maybe a bit teasing, but instead his voice came out harsh. “Just trying to come up with more fodder for the fucked up stories about our non-existent friendship, huh?”

He felt bad when he glanced over and caught the stricken look on Evan’s face; the boy was too expressive for his own good. His chin trembled. “Ah, so it’s one of _those_ dreams, where you remind me what a terrible person I am for lying to everyone—“

It struck something in Connor that Evan had had dreams like that. He scowled at the sky for a moment before struggling back into a sitting position. “This isn’t a dream, freak. Hell, I thought the _other_ stuff was a dream, but here we are.”

Evan was shaking his head, but the motion jostled the arm he’d been holding rigid against his torso. He whimpered. “Oh god—I forgot how much this hurt…”

Connor stood and – gently, though he’d never admit it – helped maneuver Evan to stand. “Do you think you can keep your arm still enough if we walk back? Or should I go get one of the rangers?”

Evan was chewing at his lower lip and wouldn’t meet Connor’s eyes now, a deep frown making a little crease deepen between his eyes. “Umm—last time, I walked fine. So unless this dream gets even weirder, I should be okay?”

Connor bit back another attempt to convince the other boy that it wasn’t a dream, instead striding back down the path and expecting Evan would follow. He’d have to convince him later, probably once he’d gone to sleep and woken again. Aside from proving himself not to be crazy, Connor felt… lightened, somehow, to know he wasn’t alone in this. That he wasn’t floundering in the dark in the fucked up, unprecedented position of having come back to life and travelled back in time.

Even if his companion was Evan Hansen – awkward and ridiculous, endearing and fumbling as he was – at least Connor wasn’t alone.

God _damn_ he was pathetic.

* * *

See, the thing was, Connor hadn’t really meant to kill himself.

Not _really_ , anyway.

Weed was great for taking the edge off, for shutting up the ever-present, snide voice in the back of his mind that gave unhelpful commentary on his every action. That reminded him what a fuckup he was, what a disappointment. That it was obvious why he had no friends: who’d want to be friends with a freak anyway? But the downside was that, without that voice holding him back, he’d sober up to find he’d kicked Zoe’s door off its hinges, punched a hole through the wall in the kitchen, threw one of his dad’s stupid baseball trophies through the new flat screen.  At least with that voice narrating his faults, he was more likely to swallow down his rage and stick to scathing words rather than actual violence.

The other downside was that, the higher he got, the less likely he was to think of consequences. He’d broken a lot of things that way, nearly or actually hurt random people while stoned out of his gourd. Normally he tried to keep it balanced, lock himself away in his room and smoke just enough to feel floaty and lazy, to stop that asshole voice from telling him about what a crazy fucktard he was. He’d chill listening to music or reading or fucking around on Tumblr and Reddit, eating Hot Cheetos until everything he touched was smudged with little red fingerprints, then doze off for a few hours without nightmares. Without pain.

But sometimes, in an effort to feel _less_ , to think _less_ , he just kept smoking.

He had tried other drugs, but most of them just made him even more high-strung than usual, worse than getting to that ridiculous stage when he smoked too much pot. The only things that were comparable were pain meds and benzos, but those weren’t exactly easy to find even with the number of his mom’s bored, housewife friends that were drugged to the gills. He remembered the night he’d died, though, he’d gotten his hands on a few Xanax. Between that and the weed, he’d felt… numb. He had just sat there on the floor of his room thinking about how much he hated his family, his school, and all the idiots he had to interact with on a daily basis. Mostly, though, he had just realized how deeply he hated _himself_. He was seventeen and hadn’t had a real friend since elementary school. His family thought he was nuts. Even his lame, bitchy sister was afraid of him. He never said the right thing. He always managed to scare people off, even when he genuinely wanted to get to know them. But how could he blame them?

So he’d sat there, staring at his reflection until something in him had snapped. He’d shattered the mirror with his boot, kicking and kicking and kicking until he was exhausted and panting. Things were fuzzy after that, but he remembered laying there with his head stuffed with cotton, eyeing where he’d managed to get a small shard of glass stuck in his palm. He couldn’t feel it. So he’d decided to see what it took until he _could_ feel it.

So yeah, no, he hadn’t been planning to die or anything. Sure, he’d always known that it would probably be better if he wasn’t there anymore. No more parents arguing about his stability, no more cold, snide sister flinching away from him whenever he got near. No more assholes at school eyeing him like he was going to explode at any given moment. Really, even if someone did notice he was gone, they’d probably be glad, he’d assumed.

But somehow, that hadn’t been the case.

Whether it would have been different if he hadn’t forgotten about that stupid letter he’d stuffed in his pocket after arguing with Evan in the library, he’d never know. All he did know was that, due to Evan’s ridiculous awkwardness and anxiety and several increasingly improbable situations, his death had started a motherfucking _movement._ He remembered being dead like he remembered childhood memories: foggy and distant but with shining moments of clarity. He had been aware of things in fits and starts, a set of seemingly disconnected and alternating points of view that spanned the days and weeks following his death.

Most clearly, though, he remembered watching Evan Hansen fumble for notecards on his knees before his terrified expression had melted to a steely resolve. That look on the boy’s face haunted him still, blue-blue eyes and set jaw as he stood and began to pour out his heart about an asshole who’d pushed him and called him names only days before. Passionately and without guile demanding that no one be forgotten, that no one believe they were alone.

Lying in his bed after the strangest day of his life, staring up at the galaxy motif he had painted himself when he was young and still cared about shit, terrified to go to sleep and find that this second chance had been the dream after all… Connor found himself hoping that really did apply to him, too.

* * *

Connor woke to a hesitant knock on his bedroom door, his mother’s bewildered voice on the other side. “C-Connor? There’s someone at the door for you?” She sounded so shocked that he’d be insulted if he didn’t understand completely.  He’d never had someone over before.

Connor pushed himself out of bed and dragged his hands through his hair; it was a riotous mess in the mornings. “Send him up,” he croaked, reaching for a random shirt from the floor.

She retreated fast, steps skipping down the stairs. Now that he was listening, he heard her overly-cheerful voice from the living room. “You said your name was Evan, right?” God, she sounded so disgustingly saccharine. “I’m Cynthia, Connor’s mom! He said to go right up—it’s really nice to meet you! Do you want a kale smoothie? I just made a fresh batch!”

He couldn’t hear Evan’s response, but he could imagine it was stuttering and abrupt. After a few minutes of silence from them both, he heard much slower steps on the stairs and down the hall to his room, hovering outside his door. There was a long moment of silence.

“For fucks sake, Evan, open the door.”

He heard a squeak and startled fumbling, but after a moment the door inched open. Evan Hansen was chewing at his lower lip and shifting from foot to foot, a glass of green murk awkwardly clasped in his cast-impaired hand. “Umm, your mom said to come up, and I’m sorry to bother you but I didn’t have your phone number?”

“Just come in, dork,” he said with an exhausted sigh. “Stop hovering.”

“Sorry!  Sorry.”

Connor rolled his eyes and pulled up his legs to sit cross-legged on his unmade bed. Evan, after creeping in awkwardly and nudging his door shut again, hovered a few steps into the room amidst Connor’s dirty laundry. "I like your ceiling," Evan said apropos of nothing. "Your mom told me you'd painted it yourself. Did you ever think of doing the walls, too?  Like, a forest scene or something and that's the sky above it? I could get you pictures of really pretty, easy trees if you want – I could even help! Then your room could be like a forest—"

"You're here for a reason, right?" He'd feel bad for interrupting, but he really didn't want the boy to get started on trees. It was adorable when he started rambling and nearly bouncing in place, but they had shit to discuss and clear up.

“Ah, so, I guess I’m maybe not dreaming?” Evan said after a moment, his voice full of a low-key sort of panic of the sort that came from being strung tightly very often and not having the energy for much more than that. “I mean, it’s definitely still summer again, and I slept and woke up… umm, I don’t think I’ve ever done that in a dream before.”

Connor rolled his eyes and thrust out an arm to point at his desk chair. “Sit, would you? What did I say about hovering?”

Evan jolted and chewed harder at his lower lip; it was swollen and red at this point and Connor wouldn’t be surprised if he made himself bleed. Anxiety really shouldn't be allowed to be attractive. “Ah! Sorry!” He tripped over himself to sit in the chair, though he kept his still-untouched glass of kale-goop aloft and unspilled. He kept his eyes on it instead of Connor, rotating it between his hands. “So this really isn’t a dream? You’re really alive, but you remember that you died? This is—really weird.”

Connor sighed again and flopped back, staring up at the swirling nebulae painted on his ceiling, trying to keep from snapping. “Yeah. I woke up day before yesterday after being dead. I think I win on the weird front.”

“It’s not a competition,” Evan muttered, though Connor was sure he wasn’t supposed to hear it.  “What do we do?”

“Do?” Well… he hadn’t actually thought of that.

“Well, yeah. I mean, in movies there’s always a reason when you get sent back in time, right? Stop some bad guy, save someone’s life—“ Evan’s breathing hitched and stalled before suddenly he sucked in a deep, audible gulp. “Oh. Oh.”

“Don’t ‘oh’ me,” Connor snarled, sitting back up with violent intent. He leaned forward over his knees and pinned Evan in place with a glare. “This isn’t some shitty movie, Hansen. We aren’t heroes and my life sure as hell isn’t important enough to be the reason for the fucking universe to rewind.”

Rather than being terrified, as Connor would have expected him to be, Evan stared at him with a bewildering solemnity, blue eyes wide and damp. “Of course your life is important, Connor. You don’t know how many people—“

“Yeah, I know,” he interrupted, not willing to listen to the boy wax poetic. “I watched shit, all right? I saw. But it was never about _me_ , it was about the shit you made up about me.”

That made Evan flinch, hard, nearly upending himself in the chair. Surprisingly, he still held that stupid glass steady that Connor’s mother had foisted on him. “No! No, Connor, it _was_ about you. M-Maybe we weren’t really friends—“ oh god, those were tears, the loser was crying now. Connor held himself rigid to keep himself from reaching out placating hands to pat at him ineffectively. “—but that doesn’t mean your death didn’t _mean something_. If you watched, you saw that. You saw how much your family hurt, how many people missed you –“

“Again.” Connor dipped his head and let his hair hide his eyes. “That was more about you, Evan. That was because of the stories you made up about a person who wasn’t me and the speech you gave—“

“But it was all because of you!” They both froze in the aftermath of Evan’s high, frantic shout, the sudden silence thick. But as he had done so many times already, Evan surprised Connor when he sucked in a deep breath and continued, his voice emotional and earnest and— ugh. “It was because of you. Yeah, maybe we weren’t really friends, but we could have been. You’re not the only one hurting, Connor Murphy. You’re not the only person who's felt forgotten, alone, or useless. But because of you, because of _losing you_ , we were all able to come together and realize what you didn’t live long enough to. And your family didn’t miss the person I wrote emails about, they missed _you._ They were upset because they felt like they’d failed _you._ And yeah, okay, maybe Zoe was a little more because of the stories I told, but even she just wanted her brother back.”

Connor drew his knees up to his chest, curling in on himself as well as he could. He didn’t have a response for that.

“So maybe that’s why we’re here,” Evan said softly after a long silence. “Maybe it’s so I can show you how important you are. Help you find a way to say the stuff you can’t. Show you that you’re not alone—“

Connor’s breath hitched.

“—like you did for me.”

Fucking fuck— fuck Evan Hansen. Connor pressed his forehead to his knees and hated himself as he cried.


End file.
